


Can You Go Home Again?

by orphan_account



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: F/M, Modern AU
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-11-23
Updated: 2019-11-22
Packaged: 2021-02-26 05:21:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,308
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21528262
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Sansa Stark returns North after 5 years to attend her brother's wedding, and maybe to put some old ghosts to rest too.
Relationships: Jon Snow/Sansa Stark, Robb Stark/Jeyne Westerling
Comments: 6
Kudos: 39





	Can You Go Home Again?

_Socialite Sansa Stark expected to rejoin her estranged family for the Wedding of the Year_ the tagline shouted, all capped and bolded and in a comically large font, overlaid on a glossy photograph of herself in a sequined cocktail dress from the MoMa New Year’s Eve gala. The picture wasn’t bad, but she wrinkled her nose at the caption. _Estranged._ It was not a pretty word to have literally stamped over one’s self. That irritated her almost as much as the untruth of it.

_Estranged_ implied that she wasn’t still a part of the family. That she wouldn’t be welcomed. That was simply untrue. She wasn’t _estranged_ from her family, at least not precisely. Hadn't she just texted with Bran last month? Didn't Rickon leave comments on her Instagram pretty regularly? Robb had even called her himself to tell her about the wedding.

And what the hell did a glossy gossip rag like the New York Star (“Your one-stop source for all the hottest celebrity gossip and up-to-the second news about the famous and beautiful!”) know about it anyway? Normally, she wouldn’t have been caught dead reading such trash. But the blaring cover “NORTHERN ROYAL WEDDING!!” had caught her eye at the station, and she had bought it quickly before she had time to think about it.

But… _estranged_? Even if she hadn’t lived full-time at Winterfell in ten years or been home at all in three, she had been specifically invited home for the wedding, hadn’t she? She was headed there now, wasn’t she? That wouldn’t happen if she were _estranged_. 

She looked out the window and closed her eyes, willing herself to calm down. The train was still some ways from Bangor, and it would be another hour after that by car once they arrived at the station. Plenty of time still to prepare. To will herself strong.

She glanced down at the man sleeping beside her, his long legs sprawled out on the seat across from them. The wild beauty of the passing Maine landscape had held Harry’s interest for less than an hour before boredom set in, and the weakness of the Wi-Fi signal as they headed further north had annoyed him even more. It had been a relief when he had finally dozed off.

She inspected him closely, admiring the perfect tousle of his almost blond hair, his handsome face, the expensive and fashionable clothes. Even slouched carelessly across two seats, he looked effortlessly put together as always. That wasn't a surprise though. Everything Harry did was effortless, and careless.

The train had been her idea. Harry had wanted to fly – first class, of course - the whole way. It seemed silly to him to switch to a train for the journey to Maine after flying from New York to Boston. He had told her so, several times.

But she had known that she would need the time. To head north again, to head home, for the first time in years. It needed to be slowly and not all at once. She needed the time to watch the land turn gradually less civilized and wilder. To armor herself.

So she had smiled sweetly and pouted prettily in bed one night, _But, darling, please, the train will be so romantic!_ And then when she had run her nails lightly up his bare chest and then down slowly under the sheet, he had grudgingly agreed to her plan, just like she had known he would.

She turned the page. _Robb Stark, oldest son of the late Governor Eddard Stark and Catelyn Tully Stark, set to marry Mayflower descendant Jeyne Westerling in old money extravaganza._ She made a face. _Extravaganza?_ How gauche. She studied the picture of Jeyne carefully. She was pretty, with a shy smile. Sansa had never met her. She wondered what they had told her about the other Stark sister away in New York. 

She read on. _The wedding will be held at the ancestral Stark family compound Winterfell in upstate Maine. Robb Stark is expected to be attended by his brothers, Brandon and Rickon, with his sister Arya to stand as a bridesmaid._

Arya. The hurt welled up. She turned the page quickly, avoiding the pictures of her siblings all together or the picture of Arya with Jeyne. Robb had not mentioned that Arya would be a bridesmaid, and certainly there had been no mention of any such role for herself. She looked down at her hands to find that she was worrying her cuticles again, picking at the edges of her fresh manicure. She willed herself to still her hands, to take a deep breath as she leaned her forehead against the glass. It wouldn’t do at all to show up with her fingers picked raw. Not at all. She had to be perfect.

From the moment she had gotten Robb’s call to tell her about the wedding and ask her tentatively to come ( _Did he really want her there? Had he just asked for their mother, or worse yet, because of how bad it would look in the press if she weren’t there?_ ), she had begun planning. Everything had to be perfect, down to the last detail. She had to be perfect. Perfect clothes, perfect boyfriend, perfect life. Maybe then it would be alright. Then they would all know she had been fine – no, _perfect_ – without them.

She glanced down at Harry again. So far, so good. He was the perfect date to bring home. He was rich and one day to be richer, heir to an aerospace manufacturing fortune. He was painfully good-looking. He smiled easily and often. If his humor was sometimes a little too sarcastic, a touch too mean, it was fleeting. He was invited to all the best parties, and everyone said they loved him. Sometimes she even thought she did too. Her family would take one look at him and know that Sansa had chosen well. This time at least.

_Sources say that even Sansa Stark is expected to attend, rumored to be her first visit north in years._

She figured that just went to show that even a trashy gossip rag could be get some things right. That part was true. It had been three years since she had seen Winterfell. Three years since it had all gone wrong. With her family and with Joffrey, before everything had fallen apart.

She winced away as always from the thought of Joff. Besides, it had all started way before Joff. 

She had thought about it - the whole mess - brooded over it really, for years. She examined every detail, every moment she could remember, trying to make sense of it, trying to unravel it. Only one thing ever became clear. Her problems hadn’t started with Joffrey, they had started with _Jon_. That’s when everything started to fall apart.

Jon. She swallowed hard, past the sudden lump in her throat. He would be there too, of course. Robb’s best man, that’s all she knew. And now she was headed back and soon she would see him and he would see her, and there was no way to know which way it would go. 

And so she had planned it all very carefully. She would wear her prettiest dresses and fuss over her soon-to-be sister-in-law at all the pre-wedding festivities. She would speak politely to Arya. She would laugh and smile and tell stories about New York so her mother and brothers would know that life there was just what she had always wanted. And she’d stand next to handsome Harry with her arm linked through his, look Jon Snow right in his dark eyes, and show him how happy she was.

She closed the magazine with a flick and tossed it aside. “Wake up Harry, love, we’re here.” Time to show them all. Winterfell’s daughter was coming home again.


End file.
